What is this wet stuff?

WE. GOT. RAIN. TODAY!!!!

I was watching HIMYM today when I saw a lightning flash.  Naturally, it was raining in the scene, too, so I thought that was all I had seen.  It took a few more lightning bolts and light rumbles of thunder to realize that a storm was in fact moving through Doha!! There was nothing on the radar or anywhere in the forecast to suggest that rain would be coming, so no one was expecting it.  I immediately jumped out of my chair and ran outside to make sure I wasn't dreaming!  My smile brought on by the impending rain quickly turned to a gasp when I realized it wasn't actually a thunderstorm that was coming...it was a sandstorm! All of us  expats outside quickly ran inside or under our breezeways to avoid the sand. It was such a cool sight to see it coming up toward the compound, but I didn't think to bring my camera out.  Thankfully after the sand was gone we did actually get rain, and it rained for almost an hour! I jumped around in it, as did the other kids, relishing in the cooler temperatures and much needed moisture.

The Qataris, however, had a different idea of what to do in the rain. Enjoy:

This whole weekend has honestly been fantastic :)  Thursday we went to the Grand Mosque with Qatar Foundation.  We had the incredible opportunity to walk around inside and take pictures of the absolutely beautiful house of worship.  It was a nice surprise to see my friend Kyla there, since it had been a couple of weeks.  We took pictures modeling the abayas they gave us (mine was bedazzled in pink rhinestones and gold trim) and the hijabs we brought so as to show reverence for Islam. I had an Indonesian friend do my hijab for me at school since I had no idea what I was doing, and you would have thought the world was ending.  Everyone just stared at me. I had to announce that I was going to the Grand Mosque so they asked us to wear a hijab. Out of everything that I have worn here, that got me the strangest looks...go figure. 

Inside the Grand Mosque

Grand Mosque minaret

The study abroad kids booked flights to Dubai for next weekend...can't wait! It took forever to actually get my ticket booked since flydubai is epically awful online, but everything is taken care of now :)  Who knows what awaits us there...dolphins? skiing? marriage proposal from a prince? Okay, so that last one is out there, but hey, a girl can dream ;) 

One month down!

I can't believe I've already been here a month! Just last week I was saying it felt like forever that I had been here, but now that I actually think about it, I realize I only have three months left!  The busier I get, the faster everything flies by.  I finally got all parts of my schedule set today, and boy will I be left tired a lot!  I'm only taking 9 hours of classes a week, but I'm tutoring English and writing for 14 hours, doing research as part of my internship about 10 hours, and tutoring Spanish on the weekends. That doesn't even include all the time I'm spending on my Arabic homework...this class is easily the hardest one I've taken since calculus my freshman year!

Souq Waqif at dusk

Thankfully, though, I was spoiled this week to make up for my exhausting week.  My host mom is in Singapore, so I stayed with a friend this week in a swanky high rise downtown. It's soooooooooooo nice! We were minutes away from fancy hotels and restaurants, the downtown mall with skating rink, and the corniche - a cultural walkway in and of itself! Thursday we finished off the week at a really nice Italian restaurant to indulge in pumpkin week, a bottle of Italian wine, and great company.  Just what all of us needed after the week we had.

Downtown Doha at night!

The study abroad kids were treated last night to a dinner by our asst. dean and my research faculty at their home downtown.  Good ole homemade Mexican food...finally! :)  We all dressed up and just sat around the table relaxing and watching American football.  Delicious tacos, warm brownies, and fresh ground coffee made the night absolutely perfect. I also got to show some of the kids upstairs to see the view from the top of the high rise. It really is breathtaking here.

With that, I will leave you til next time! And btw, I'm taking suggestions for where I should go the 2nd week of December before we all head home! Leave a comment for me!

I RODE A CAMEL

I know the whole blog is not going to be about my title, but I really just had to put that out there. Sorry I have been distant for a few days...I have been battling my semi-annual sickness. Yay.  8000 miles away from the allergy capital of the world and I still catch something.  Thankfully the good people at the pharmacy took pity on me and gave me the medicine I needed with neither a dr. appt. or a prescription.

The last few days have been very dicey here.  Everyone is keeping on their toes due to the recent violence, and we will probably be practicing our evacaution routine in a few days.  Nothing to worry about...they test it once every month or so.  Really the only country on this entire peninsula that has even had violence is Yemen - and that's not entirely surprising.  My Yemeni friend is just sick of all the violence and chaos, ranting that everyone is yelling and destroying things for the simple pleasure of yelling and destroying things.  He has friends that work in our embassy and obviously wants no harm to come to them.  We had our own protest Friday after mosque, but it was as peaceful as a coherent, logical demonstration should be.  A couple thousand gathered across the street and yelled "Praise be to God," and "Allah is one," with some holding signs I couldn't read, and that was about it.  No one yelled that they hate America.  No one yelled, "Obama, Obama, we're all Osama."  They voiced their anger and went home to be with family.

Qatar has Froyo! Granted it was $.80/oz but that's okay

My Friday was pretty flippin fantastic though, outside of being sick of course. Adrian and I lounged around and watched movies and then headed to the sooq (marketplace) to buy gifts and such for people back home.  I got a new purse and sunglasses, so I can fit in with the oh-so-stylish Qatari people.  Well...I can at least try. The best part was the freaking camel that I got to ride for free because the guy is awesome!!!  This is kind of how the conversation went:

Me: (taking pictures) Ooh. Aah. It's camels.

Adrian: I know, right?

Bedouin guy who keeps looking at me:  *whistles and points inside*

Me: Uhh...no. I'm good.

Guy: Yes yes. You. Come in.

Me: La. La la la la la. (No, I'm not singing. That means no.)

Guy: Don't be scared.

Me: Fine. *crawls through* (Adrian snaps picture and I walk off)

This is Shabat. His name means "young." Or "February." They're close, right?

Guy: *more whistles* Hey. You want on?

Me: La. Shukran. (No. Thanks though)

Guy: Why you scared?

Me: (So I've gotten called a scaredy cat twice now...fantastic). Ana labsah tanoorah. (I'm in a skirt dude.)

Guy: Get on.

So I do. And he says, again, "Don't be scared."  At this point, I'm not scared, I'm terrified.  I am waaaaaaaay past just concerned that I'm getting on a camel bareback and will soon be about 8 feet in the air. Guy held my arm and kept me safe, but I definitely felt weird being on the back of a camel in a skirt. 

Me: Shukran jazilan. Bikaam? (Thanks so much! How much?)

Guy: La. La.

Me: La la la. Min fadlak. *hand over heart*  Min fadlak. Bikaam? (No no no. Please, how much?)

Guy: You know me now. No money.

Somewhat creepy I suppose, but totally awesome that a random guy in the middle of a sooq let me ride a camel spontaneously and refused to let me pay him for it.

Me and Shabat :)

Life is short

I feel that being here in the Middle East means I should comment on the attacks today.  Praise be to God that I am in neither Libya nor Egypt, but that does not mean that I am not affected by it here.  On the contrary, when I found out that Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were brutally murdered, I almost broke down in tears.  I'm not sure if it was the loss of life, the utter exhaustion from this week, or being in this region that made me so upset, but everything became very real for me today.

We all heard about the attacks before most of you were awake today, but we heard only slight details.  It wasn't until this afternoon that we learned the ambassador was killed, or really that more than one death had occurred at all. The reaction to these attacks has been most profound for the Americans, obviously, but everyone I have talked to here - Egyptian, Yemeni, Qatari, etc. - has been just as upset and confused.  The South African I talked with was livid, denouncing the radical Islamists and just frustrated at all the violence.  The Arabs were upset and felt bad for our country, but they almost seemed unfazed at the actual event.  The Yemeni guy I talked to showed me pictures of the body of one of the bodyguards in the attempted assassination of his defense minister a few days ago.  The graphic, crispy body of this innocent man was blasted all over Facebook in Yemen; nothing was censored.  Something I did not realize until this morning was how protected we are in America.  As someone put it, our news is sanitized.  We get so upset at North Korea and China and Russia for not allowing free speech and censorship of media, but we do it, too, and we don't even realize it.  You don't find pictures of burning bodies or slaughtered kids in Syria or bomb victims on Facebook in America.  For better or for worse that's just how it is.  These college students are used to seeing pictures like this.  It honestly makes me less surprised that revolutions and riots happen so frequently here.  If I saw that on my FB in the morning and had to see children dying in the streets, I would do something about it, too.  Somehow the government is not doing its job.

Amidst all this violence, Doha is an island of peace.  The Qataris, Syrians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Americans, British...all of us get along with each other.  There are obviously political differences that get people all in a tizzy, but my point is I don't see violence here.  I don't even see crime.  People here are respectful of religion and political thought insofar as they will not rise up against you because of what you believe.  I have found several Christians to hang out with and fellowship with here.  On the flip side, I have met hundreds of Arab Muslims who are just as interested in American culture and my faith as I am in theirs.  There are so many things I take for granted and think others should just know, but then in turn I feel they think the same about me when I have questions.  They are eager to teach me their dialect of Arabic (which btw is causing me migraines) and what the true doctrine of Islam is.  They refuse to label themselves with the radicals and do not mention them when talking about the different beliefs within Islam.  I've come to find the evening/sunset call to prayer as one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

It's funny/sad that people freak out when they hear I'm in the Middle East because they lump the entire region together as an unstable environment for anyone to live in.  If people would just do their part and go further than watching CNN or Fox or whichever media you prefer, they would see that the Middle East is as much a melting pot as our United States.

One full week down!

So there have been some changes since I wrote that quick blurb about my weekend.  The most important is that it's looking like I actually probably won't move into the dorms here.  Apparently, since the Bush School doesn't have an official contract (working on that when I get back if I can!) with TAMUQ, grad students are provided housing at the discretion of faculty here. The Qatar Foundation, which houses the undergrads that come here, have contracts with the various universities that are here. If I wanted to live in their housing, I would have to shell out 11000QAR, which is the equivalent of a little more than $3000. I'm perfectly happy where I am and have plenty of things to do.  I am being taken care of more than I could have possibly hoped for with a room, a pool, a gym, friendly neighbors, great food...it would have only been a move out of convenience so I'd have more proximity to students. But, that's what a cell phone, car service, and emails are for. :)

Anywho, back to the weekend.  We started off at the Museum of Islamic Art, built by renowned Chinese artist I.M. Pei.  He designed the building so that it itself would be a piece of geometric art, changing with how the sun hit it during the day.  Right downtown along the Corniche, the MIA fits in with the super modern atmosphere of Doha, while ironically housing some of the most classic forms of art the Qataris have acquired.  The museum houses long, exquisite oriental rugs (which we pretended to take for a "magic carpet ride." Not so happy looks from the security guards...), ornate Turkish war masks and helmets, calligraphic Quranic script on everything from bowls to tombstones, and several precious gems.  We even saw one of the smallest Qur'ans I think exists!  Afterwards we headed out to a really nice Middle Eastern restaurant where the Navy boys and some of our guys enjoyed grape shisha.  I had never heard of people smoking shisha in the middle of a nice restaurant, but apparently that's pretty normal here!

Museum of Islamic Art

Yahala was definitely something....different.  Don't get me wrong, it was a blast; it was just nothing what I expected.  I'm not sure what I expected, actually. They told us it would be a welcoming party for all the students from across Education City, but I don't think any of us were prepared for the madness.  For one, the Aggies were not the most obnoxious, most rambunctious group.  That title belongs to Northwestern.  Holy moly those Wildcats could yell.  Before the main event they had a tiny raffle (3 prizes for about 600 people), and there were booths set up all over the student center.  We were given free gourmet cupcakes, free shirts, and free sodas.  I signed up to help Qatar Charity because for only $11 a month, you can help save an orphan! It's an awesome thing they do here, and there are several donation booths on each of the campuses.

Smallest. Qur'an. Ever.

The food has been consistently delicious here, but I'm going to have to go to Applebees or Chilis at some point because I'm not sure how much more Middle Eastern food my stomach can handle! It's not used to the richness of the hummus, the curry, the butter chicken, and the dolmas.  About the only thing my stomach has greatly welcomed has been the tabouleh!

Turkish soldier's helmet

I'll leave you with a few things I never actually expected to see or hear in Doha but shockingly have:

• Applebees, Chilis, TGI Fridays, Johnny Rockets, TCBY, and Baskin Robbins
• KFC and Taco Bell DELIVERY
• as many roundabouts as there are mosques
• Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Mercedes a dime a dozen

Labor Day weekend

So we don't actually celebrate Labor Day here, but it was a weekend full of parties and get togethers regardless.  My class starts in about an hour, but I figured I would give a short update on this weekend before the longer post with pictures and such.

Rundown of the weekend:

• Museum of Islamic Art, designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei
• Fabulous Middle Eastern restaurant with enormous buffet and shisha
• Yahalla, a welcome back party for all students at HBK university
• Four hours of orientation for study abroad students, where we learned about 20 different ways we could get thrown in jail for at least three years here
• Booked flight for the Holy Land, with more possible flights to Turkey, Thailand, and Nepal to come!
• Church!!!
• The possibility that I might be able to live on campus with the rest of the students!